But there wasn’t any moss.
Was someone cleaning the premises regularly? Burning the moss off if he was a Light One, or freezing it off if he was a Dark One?
Well, if there was an Other on the staff here, that would be a help to me.
As if in response to my thoughts, I heard the sound of footsteps. They were quite fast, as if someone had heard me shout and was hurrying towards me from a long way away, through the maze of plasterboard partition walls. A few second later the black-painted door from this room into the next one opened.
And in walked a vampire.
Not a real one, of course. He had a normal human aura.
A man in fancy dress.
A black cloak, rubber fangs in his mouth, pale make-up on his face. A good-quality make-up job. Only all this didn’t fit too well with the curly ginger hair. He probably had to wear a black wig when he was working. And another thing that didn’t fit was the plastic bottle of mineral water that my visitor was just about to drink from.
The young guy frowned when he saw me. His good-natured face turned not exactly angry but strict and reproachful. He reached up to his mouth and turned away for a second. When he looked at me again, the fangs were gone.
‘Mister?’
‘Do you work here?’ I asked. I didn’t want to use magic and break his will. There are always simpler ways of coming to terms with someone. Human ways.
‘Yes, but the show’s closed. Temporarily.’
‘Because of the murder?’ I asked.
The young guy frowned. Now he certainly wasn’t feeling well-disposed.
‘Mister, I don’t know how you got past … This is private property. The place is closed to visitors. Come on, please – I’ll show you out.’
He took a step towards me and even reached out one hand to demonstrate that he was prepared to take me out by force.
‘Were you here when Victor Prokhorov was killed?’ I asked.
‘Just exactly who are you?’ he asked cautiously
‘I’m a friend of his. I flew in from Russia today.’
The young guy’s face fell. He started backing away until he came up against the door he’d come in through. He pushed it – but the door didn’t open. I must confess that was my fault.
Now he was in a total panic.
‘Mister … I wasn’t to blame for anything! We’re all cut up about the way Victor died. Mister … Comrade!’
He spoke the last word in Russian. I wondered what old action movie he remembered it from.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I was the one who was confused now. I moved closer to him. Could I really have been lucky enough to come across someone who knew something, who was involved with the murder somehow? Otherwise, what was all the panic about?
‘Don’t kill me, I didn’t do anything!’ the young guy babbled. His skin was whiter than his make-up now. ‘Comrade! Sputnik, vodka, perestroika! Gorbachev!’
‘That last word could certainly get you killed in Russia,’ I muttered, and reached into my pocket for my cigarettes.
It was a very unfortunate thing to say. And that movement wasn’t the best of ideas, either. The young guy’s eyes rolled up and back and he collapsed on the floor. The bottle of mineral water fell beside him.
Out of sheer stubbornness, I dealt with the young man without using any magic. A few slaps to the cheeks and a sip of water soon fixed him up. Then I considerately offered him a cigarette.
‘It’s all right for you to laugh,’ he said morosely, after we had sat down in two fake torture chairs – they had a hole in the seat and lurking in the hole was a menacing stake on a crank and lever mechanism. ‘You think it’s funny …’
‘I’m not laughing,’ I said mildly
‘You’re just laughing to yourself.’ The young guy drank greedily. Then he held out his hand and introduced himself: ‘Jean.’
‘Anton. But I thought you were Scottish.’
Jean shook his ginger curls proudly.
‘No … French. I’m from Nantes.’
‘Are you studying here?’
‘Just earning a bit of money.’
‘Listen, why are you wearing that idiotic costume?’ I asked. ‘There aren’t any customers anyway.’
Jean blushed – quickly, the way only redheads and albinos can.
‘The boss put me on guard duty until the show opens up again. I’m just waiting … in case the police suddenly decide they want to check something. It’s a bit creepy here on your own. I feel calmer in the costume.’
‘I almost crapped in my pants,’ I complained to him – there’s nothing better for easing stress than that kind of low style. ‘But what were you afraid of?’
Jean gave me a surly glance and shrugged.
‘It’s hard to say. That guy was killed here, so it’s like we’re to blame or something … but for what, for what? And he was Russian! You can never tell… Everyone knows what that can lead to … We started talking about it here, just joking at first… Then it got more serious. What if his father comes, or his brother, or a friend … and he kills all of us.’
‘So that’s what you’re talking about,’ I said brightly. ‘Well, let me assure you that blood vengeance isn’t really all that common in Russia. But the Scots have it too, by the way.’
‘That’s just what I’m saying,’ Jean agreed, missing the point. ‘It’s barbaric. Primitive! The twenty-first century, the civilised world—’
‘And someone gets his throat cut,’ I threw in. ‘What actually happened to Victor?’
Jean glanced at me again. He took a drag on his cigarette and shook his head.
‘I think you’re lying. You’re not a friend of Victor’s. You’re from the KGB. You’ve been sent to investigate the murder. Right?’
He really must have been overdoing those action movies. This was getting ridiculous.
‘Jean, you know yourself,’ I said in a low voice, ‘that I can’t answer that question.’
The young Frenchman nodded very seriously. Then he carefully stubbed his cigarette out on the floor.
‘Let’s go, Mr Russian. I’ll show you the place. Only don’t smoke any more, there’s nothing but rags and cardboard here, perfect tinder for a blaze – whoosh!’
He pushed the door and, of course, it opened easily. Jean gave it a thoughtful look and shrugged. We walked through a few more rooms.
‘There it is, the crappy Castle of the Vampires,’ Jean said in a gloomy voice. He fumbled at the wall and clicked a switch. The light became a lot brighter.
Yes, darkness was appropriate here. Without it, the tourist attraction simply looked ludicrous. The River of Blood that people were supposed to sail across to the vampires was a long metal trough about three metres wide. The trough was full of water.
It wasn’t deep.
Maybe up to my knee.
The metal barge wasn’t actually floating on the water, of course. I rocked the side of the boat with my foot and realised that it was standing on rollers of some kind. And under the water I could see the cable that towed the boat from one ‘mooring’ to the next. The total length of the trough was no more than fifteen metres. Halfway along it the metal tub crept into a room that was separated off by heavy curtains (they were pulled back now). I saw an impressive-looking fan on the ceiling of the room. On one wall there was a crudely painted picture of a castle standing on a cliff.
I walked to the bow of the barge and glanced into the dark room. Yes, it was an idiotic sort of place to lose your life. Right… in five days any clues could have disappeared, but I would give it a try.